LIHUE — The Kauai Forest Bird Recovery Project blessed helicopters this week as the annual field season commences efforts to save native Kauai birds.
In collaboration and attendance was the staff from the Kauai Forest Bird Recovery Project (KFBRP) along with staff from Jack Harter Helicopters and the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) Division of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW), among others.
The blessing of the whirlybirds was held on Monday, Feb. 3rd in a hangar at the north end of the Lihue International Airport honoring their significance.
The helicopters will be highly essential this season during the two-pronged mosquito control efforts on Kauai’s mountains, where forest bird populations have been decimated by the advancement of avian malaria from lower elevations due to global warming.
Typically the blessing is held at Kokee near Alakai Plateau where KFBRP’s Project Leader, Dr. Lisa “Cali” Crampton has led the team since 2010, and where KFBRP staff has worked for nearly 20 years to save the islands’s native birds from extinction.
Next week, the helicopters will release cones full of male mosquitoes throughout Kauai’s mountains that will be incompatible with local female mosquitoes making their matings inviable, resulting in a reduction in their population. Releasing the male laboratory mosquitoes is a safe and clever way to reduce the mosquito population without hurting other animals or the environment.
Crampton explaines her first-hand experience and the crucial help the helicopters will provide be for KFBRP’s team and its mission.
“When we started doing all the work we do in the Alakai, the only air support we had was to get our food and our really heavy supplies in and out of the Alakai, and we did all the rest of the things we needed to do on foot,” explained Crampton. “That involved commuting on foot over arduous terrain.
She added that it took a major toll on workers and reduced the time they spent in the field working with the birds. “Working with our partners to find the budget that we needed to be able to increase the amount of air support we have for our operations has been critical.”
Crampton explained that over the years, teams have also used choppers to spread a biological larvicide, which targets bacteria to eliminate mosquito larvae in standing water.
“In the past, we’ve tried to reduce populations with hand treatments and it’s like finding a needle in a haystack trying to find every little water source there is in the Alakai Plateau, because essentially it’s a swamp,” she said.
Next week, the helicopters will serve as a kind of intensive neo-natal care transport for the eggs of anianiau as the team begins a conservation breeding program for the species to serve as an insurance population.
“If we can’t get those eggs out in a timely fashion by helicopter, the program won’t work because it’s too dangerous and too time-consuming to hike tiny little eggs out,” she explained.
The public is invited to view “Vanishing Voices” on YouTube, an in-depth, 30-minute documentary on the Hawaiian Honeycreepers and their conservation crisis for a detailed understatement of the project.
To volunteer or for more information on KFBRP’s mission and upcoming events, visit kauaiforestbirds.org or visit dlnr.hawaii.gov for a list of native birds in Hawaii.
